Why so serious?
by Remy's Writer
Summary: An encounter between a Joker and his shrink. R&R JokerHarley


**Dear Readers.**

**Something a little different. A short blurb of one of my favorite comic book couples. This is more the take that dear Heath Ledger left us with for this character. I fell in love with the intensity and the realism he brought to the character. A role fit to drive any sane man mad. This is a simple encounter between a pre-psycho Harley Quinn. A moment when she realizes what she's bound to become.**

**Enjoy!**

**Your Obedient Servant,**

**_R.W._**

He couldn't remember the number of ceiling tiles, for he'd counted them too many times

He couldn't remember the number of ceiling tiles, for he'd counted them too many times. Amusement, that's what this was. He stayed locked in this small padded cell for the amusement of his foes. That bat would get his in time. For now, he would lay silently, the occasional laughter squeezing from his scarred lips, his purple coat dusty and hanging off of the nail that stuck out of the thin frame of the small window. Thick, gray, darkening light filtered in through that pathetic piece of glass he could only see through if he stood on his worn, weary mattress.

He was caught. But only temporarily.

He would be seeing his little doctor again today. The few short weeks he'd spent here in Arkham had taught him that even the staff will lose their minds… eventually.

His padded, yet supposedly impenetrable door, opened slightly and two familiar-faced men came through to escort him down the hall. He had been feeling particularly thoughtful today, his mind wandering everywhere, even to days before he became who he was. This criminal master of Gotham, the man no one would ever out smart.

"Good afternoon… gentlemen," he purred in his tenor voice, his tongue poking out to lick his lips in his usual habitual manner. He walked with a smile on his face, one other than his paint portrayed, thinking of how today would proceed.

Her office was just as it was every other day. The same dark wood, the same leather sofa, the same camera in the upper right corner that would watch their every move. Such paranoid people, and rightfully so. Even her blonde hair, reaching just past her shoulders, shining dully in the lamplight, was the same; the curve of her lips as they twisted into that slightly ditzy smile, and her large, searching brown eyes that always looked up at him like a doe in headlights; they were all the same.

He was not fond of regularity and it was growing dull.

His escorts took their place just outside her door and he sat properly down, straight back and all, in his usual seat on that plain brown sofa. Palms down, he placed his hands flat on this thighs and looked up at her small face from between a few strands of moss-tinted hair.

"Ms. Quinzel," he purred, licking his lips quickly. "What do you have on… today's agenda? More pointless questions with which to… figure out the inner-workings of my twisted mind?"

She watched silently with a slightly arched eyebrow as he paused in his speech to always lick his lips, causing an odd, familiar sound. He was mocking her, she knew that much. Why they chose her to deal with his day to day insanity was still beyond her.

"Sorry," she said in her high-pitched voice. "Nothing set, Mista. How 'bout we just chat?" She turned toward her desk, moving to take a pen from her playing card coffee mug. Before she had the chance to draw another breath, she felt him there. "You're, uh, supposed ta stay on the couch." Her voice cracked, momentarily reaching an octave higher.

"But it's so…" he paused, tilting his head in thought, "_boring._ Don't you ever tire of routine?" His voice floated menacingly through her ears and his breath brushed her skin.

She took a deep breath. "Step back, Mistah."

It was the quick bursts of hot air blowing her hair that told her he was laughing. He moved and so did she, closer to the corner farthest and to the right of the stationary camera: the one place it couldn't quite reach. His hand brushed over something gold on her ink blotter, tucking it up his sleeve.

"Now, you're going to not scream. That would be very bad." He used his body to press her close against the wall, his hand reaching down, gently caressing the backs of her knees just below the hem of her skirt.

She controlled her breathing, keeping calm. Her panic button was at her desk. There was the consideration of screaming until she felt the cool metal run up her leg under her pencil skirt, bunching it higher and higher. She knew him enough that he could have her dead before she could draw the breath required to make a loud noise. The hair follicles all over her body stood up in goose bumps as she continued to tense in anticipation. But of what? What exactly was he going to do besides kill her or manipulate her into an escape? Lost in thought, many small things had occurred. There was one she noticed quite instantly.

The sharpened blade of her letter opener, the head of it being a smiling French clown, was being run along the line of her lips as a fistful of hair yanked her head backwards. She stared into those dark, bottomless eyes and saw what he was, the genius that others only saw a portion of.

"Harl…" the nickname he'd given her rolled off his lips. "It's the scars, isn't it? You know how I got them?" That red painted smile brushed the shell of her ear and the grip on her hair tightened. "I had a lover who told me she was leaving for another man. Before she walked out the door, she smiled at me and said, 'Why so _serious?_'" At the hiss of the 's,' her body was sullied.

She drew breath between clenched teeth, her eyes squeezing shut. Each movement was harsh and quick. How had the control slipped so easily from her to her patient? Then again, she mused, feeling him move every inch against her, had she ever been in control? Hadn't the entire city become his new playground and the citizens his expendable pawns? Wasn't it easier for him to have let her _believe_ she was in control up until the moment he chose to take that illusion away? Yes. Yes, it was.

The tip of the letter opener was dancing across the soft, vulnerable flesh of her stomach, jerking with his movements. Her mistake was opening her eyes to see the languid smile that stretched underneath his vicious makeup mask, and the victorious gleam in his eye. The black pits he had for eyes said it before his words could. _She would be his._

All it took was for her body to respond as vividly as it did as that little, golden tip bit into her skin, cutting a clean line as he continued to push and pull against her small frame. She could feel him twisting the blade to go another direction; a down-sweep and smooth curve up to her right. His body jerked ever-so-slightly and she gasped in her own, small release—much to her surprise.

Suddenly, the pain from her hair being pulled dulled and she was able to straighten her neck. Her skirt was smooth and, as she began to turn, noticed her Harlequin letter opener was back in its place. She dared look up, across the room to her ordinary, brown leather sofa and gasped quietly.

There he sat, perfect as ever: back straight, palms down flat on his thighs, staring at her with a ghost of a smile under his paint through a few strands of moss-tinted hair.

The men sitting patiently just out of the door entered silently. As he stood, so calmly, his words were just so biting.

"Doc… Why so serious?"


End file.
